Leigh High School Newspaper

Make-A-Wish becomes Grant-A-Wish

Giving is better than receiving during this holiday season. And at Leigh High School, granting is greater than wishing. Ben Davis, along with the Grant-A-Wish commission, have changed the annual Make-A-Wish rally into the Grant-A-Wish season.

Rather than having a large rally and granting a large number of gifts at one time, the Grant-A-Wish commission has put a little spin on the extremely popular Make-A-Wish rally. Spanning through the 2016 school year, wishes will be given out gradually to students who have had a wish granted for them.

“We felt that Make-A-Wish was losing its flare and the real purpose was getting lost in all the free food, but we didn’t want to stop helping people in big ways,” said head commissioner Ben Davis, junior, when asked what sparked the change.

Although leadership would love to grant as many wishes as possible, this year, the Grant-A-Wish commission is hoping to save more money to benefit students who really need something. The five dollars for food add’s up after a while, and leadership thought it would be beneficial to eliminate these little wishes for more impactful needs.

Prior years, students have gotten a slip in class to make a wish about what they want to receive by the end of the year. Many students wish for Starbucks, Chipotle, In-n-Out, Five Guys, Yogurtland. However, there are also the few who wish for funds to repair a grandmother’s burnt down house, money for their family to live after the loss of a parent, or donations to donate towards their favorite charity.

“Our goal is to grant wishes that make the greatest impact on our students and our community,” wrote the Grant-A-Wish Commision in their email to the students of Leigh.

The goal of this year is to surpass the wants of students and grant wishes that have a deeper meaning to the community. Rather than receiving 1600 or so wishes about basic wants, they hope to receive requests for more important needs.

Photo by: Samantha Villanueva

Solely in the names, Grant-A-Wish and Make-A-Wish portray two completely different perspectives. “Make-A-Wish” broadly includes the wishes for unnecessary items, wishes for worthwhile gifts, and wishes for another person in need. In the name “Grant-A-Wish,” votes are refined to granting a wish for someone who they know to be in need.

Newly this year, wishes are also to be entered in online rather than given in class. This change will make the wishes even more meaningful due to the extensive thought put into the wish. Teachers push these Make-A-Wish votes to be quickly finished so that they can resume class, and by having students entering in wishes on their own time, the wishes can be well thought out. The votes will be made outside of class, giving students time to think about who they want to help and how.

“We made the wishes online rather than in class because we didn’t intend for everyone to make a wish. If we handed out wish slips in class with the same purpose of only granting the bigger more meaningful wishes,” Davis, junior added, “we would get a lot of insincere wishes.”